After three years at Big Blue, in which time Cameron’s role had expanded to include large enterprise and public sector sales as well, Lenovo purchased IBM’s PC business. He wasn’t surprised IBM sold the business, because rumours had been flying around for a while, but remembers everybody in the office turning to Google when the official announcement broke because they had never heard of Lenovo.
Cameron was now sales director for Lenovo’s relationship business above 400 seats, which meant mid-market, large enterprise and public sector; with David Nicol overseeing transactional SMB business through distribution. Although Lenovo, which was formerly known as Legend PC, had a 30 per cent share of its home market in China, it was an unknown brand in Australia so the strategy was to grow its reseller base and market share. Cameron claims it has grown quarter on quarter since entering the local market, with its most notable successes coming in large enterprise and public sector, which have doubled during the past 18 months.
Learning from others
Although the three IT vendors Cameron has worked for in his career are all large companies, he said they have very different cultures. One constant, however, has been the key to successful channel engagement. Over the years, the most important things he has learned are the need for transparency and to demonstrate the intent to help partners grow their business.
“It’s all about winning in front of the client so you have to be prepared to compromise and find a solution,” he said. “You need to be honest and have credibility if you’re going to build trusting relationships. Partners are looking for vendors where they can pick up the phone if they have an issue.
“I’ve been able to build those relationships over the years because I’m prepared to tell it how it is. The emails and phone calls I’ve received since being added to the ARN Hall of Fame have confirmed to me that what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years is OK.”
From a channel perspective, Cameron has had a few mentors over the years including the owner of Brisbane-based Sunrise Computer Systems, Phil Howson, who eventually sold his business to Datacom, and Melbourne-based Southern Cross Computer Systems founder, Andy Hegadus.
“I learned a lot from those two guys. They were very good at giving me feedback on how you should think about your people, how you should think about your customers and how you look after the business,” he said. “They were pretty direct when it came to letting me know what worked and what didn’t work. I’ve had a lot of feedback from business partners over the years!”
